This is so trivial a matter that it embarrasses me, but it's bugging me no end. I'm trying to decide whether to put the text of my "Titles from Shakespeare" pages into boldface or not.

I'm going to increase the font size (that's for my benefit; my eyes aren't as good as they used to be), but the larger font magnifies a problem with "regular" type, and that is the wiggly appearance of some of the letters when they're italicized. The letter l, for instance, doesn't go straight up and down but sort of waves along its path.

So I've put up one version of each way for 2 Henry VI (chosen because its list of titles is short), and I'd be grateful if y'all would take a look:

At first glance, the "regular" page is more eye-appealing, until you look closely at the letters. Look especially at the ls in Kill All the Lawyers. Boldface corrects that wavery look...but I'm thinking perhaps it's too bold, too in-your-face. I've stared at those two pages so long I'm no longer sure of what I'm seeing. I'd appreciate your opinions.

Maybe it's a matter of screen resolution (mine is 800 x 600), but the "regular" page looks just fine to me; nothing wrong with the "i"s at all. (Although that final exclamation point in Here's a Villain! seems to be at a more vertical angle than the letters.) I tried a coarser resolution for comparison's sake and that looked all right too.

The "bold" page also looks perfectly good, and if it were the only choice I'd see no reason to complain. But given the choice, I think I prefer the regular.

Not i but l, the letter between "k" and "m". I'm using 800x600 rez myself, and I'm seeing wiggly lines (such as the one above the dot in the exclamation point at the end of Here's a Villain! -- which may account for the odd angle you're seeing). Browsers just don't all see the same things, and that makes getting a page right for everybody rather difficult.

Well, I'm at work (Netscape 4.6, 800 x 600) and I've had another look and guess what? No wiggly "l"s in either regular or bold (unless I look really closely). I still prefer bold, however.

But at work I use my old reading-glasses for screen-work (as advised by my optician), whereas the rest of the time, including using the PC at home, I use varifocals. Putting on the varifocals at work produces the same wiggly effect experienced at home - if anything, it's wigglier here!

Maybe I should put a notice on my gateway page: "This site best viewed without varifocals."

The vote's tied. Rita and Andrew, would you mind looking at both versions of one more page? This time I put up a page in bold that has a lot of titles (Lear); the sheer amount of boldface on that page makes me hesitate.